That's the Way the Coalition Cookie Crumbles

One reason I don't lie anymore (not much, anyway) is because I always get caught, a lesson I learned years ago. I'm always found out, and when that moment happens, it's not a pretty picture. I also came to realize that it's just a lot of damn work to keep the lie going, because inevitably, the first lie leads to another and so on, and eventually I just can't keep my story straight anymore. It's sort of a cosmic principle, it seems, that no matter how long one can keep the balls of dishonesty in the air, at some point there will be too many to juggle and the whole arrangement will end up scattered on the floor.

To use perhaps a more appropriate analogy: Is President Bush aware that his flock of chicken hawk lies is coming home to roost? Probably not, since he appears to be a man neither keen on pursuing self-awareness nor enamored with introspection. But others certainly are taking notice of Bush's obfuscations, and his cobbled-together "coalition of the willing" is starting to fray. Spanish prime minister-elect Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has vowed to pull his country's troops from Iraq if the U.S. remains in charge there, and Honduras and the Netherlands may follow suit. South Korea is reconsidering its commitment and Polish leader Aleksander Kwasniewski has said he was "misled" about reasons for the war. Time will show if other nations bring their soldiers home. What's significant, though, is that people are saying they're fed up with Bush's charade and demonstrating so with powerful action.

It is telling--but utterly unsurprising--to hear the American right excoriate the Spanish electorate for its ousting of Bush-backer Jose Maria Aznar. Spaniards have been called everything from weak to stupid to cowed since their election, even while bodies from the bombings in Madrid remain unidentified and the country still mourns. Is this what the right means when it touts its conservatism as "compassionate"? If so, I'd hate to see what these folks are like when they really get their dander up.

The Bushies can't help themselves, apparently, when it comes to their attempt to keep selling the lie that is the al-Qaida-Iraq "connection." "Appeasement!" they cry over the Spanish election, "The terrorists have won!" No, the victors really are honesty, common sense and intelligence: The Spanish, 90% of whom have been reported as being against the U.S. invasion of Iraq, decided that they'd had enough of their government's unwavering support of America's completely mindless and wasteful foray there, and also concluded that there are much better ways to combat the perpetrators of the gruesome acts that visited their beautiful capital on March 11. They refuse to buy (and always have) the completely false assertion that Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden are connected to one another in any way, shape, or form. They deduced that, contrary to combating terrorism as Bush paints it, the attack on Iraq was more like poking a giant stick into an already-disturbed hornet's nest, wasting valuable time and diverting precious resources from going after those who attacked America, Casablanca, Bali, and now Spain. Spaniards weren't ignorantly sticking their heads in the sand when they voted Aznar out, hoping that the mad bombers would just go away and leave them alone; they were saying that it's time to go after them logically. That is, it just seems more rational to the Spanish to root out terrorists in places where they are actually physically located, as opposed to killing thousands and spending billions to attack a broken-down, defenseless nation where terrorists don't reside (at least not before the war). The fact that the Iraq invasion was prosecuted under the trumped-up guise of "fighting terrorism" while in reality being a push to solidify U.S. power and satiate American corporate greed (as if corporations could ever be sated) makes the devastating carnage in Madrid that much harder to stomach. At its core, the principle for which the Spanish voted on March 14 is truth, a concept Bush and his supporters seem to deliberately avoid at all costs, lest they get any on them.

Really, the surprise isn't that the Spanish voted Aznar out. It is that polls (and we all know how reliable those can be) showed that, despite overwhelming anti-war sentiment among the Spanish, there was such apparent strong support for Aznar in the first place.

This is all too much for the right to comprehend, I guess. Their all-consuming, jingoistic support of an American military response to any situation, whether or not it makes sense--sort of like using only a hammer to try to repair every problem around the house--has rendered them incapable of sound, reasonable analysis. Instead, they engage in knee-jerk ranting and name-calling, incensed that three-fourths of another country's electorate could resoundingly reject Bush's dangerous and deceptive foreign policy and their leader's support of it. David Brooks, in a recent, near-hysterical column, lambastes the Spanish for their "inexcusable" changing of the political guard and asks: "What is the Spanish word for appeasement?" Here's a Spanish word for Brooks: nada, as in the amount of logic present in his argument. It's surreal to hear him and other backers of the invasion claim that the war in Iraq was all about instilling democracy and then rail against the results of a democratic election with such withering vehemence, completely oblivious to the sad irony of it all.

What's incredibly heartening for those of us who have protested the Iraq folly from the start is that other nations, apparently emboldened by Spain's new stance, are daring to say: We're not going to waste any more of our people's lives in Iraq, either. The wannabe emperor Bush wears no clothes and we shall no longer participate in his deadly farce. The war was wrong, the occupation is a mess, and we won't play supporting roles anymore.

The Spanish vote and the actions of the Hondurans, Dutch, and South Koreans are stands for truth. As demonstrated by the life lesson I learned long ago, it's only a matter of time before lies are revealed. The great unknown in the equation, though, is just how long the unveiling will take. It could happen immediately or take years. Fortunately, for the world's sake and that of thinking people everywhere, the Bush administration's prevarications are being held up to the light by entire countries now and shown for what they are. Thank goodness for the Spanish. May their grief be alleviated in some small way by knowing there are many in the world--and this country--who wholeheartedly cheer their bravery, decency, and strength.